it's come to this?!?!?

first I get an email from the NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation telling me that killing baby geese is acceptable ... see, here on Long Island, there is a major problem with Canada geese and all of their droppings all over our playing fields and beaches (soccer moms do not like goose poop all over their shoes and those of their children!)

so NYS DEC issues a press release about how to deal with this problem ... there is a brand-new late-winter hunting season authorized if you live further upstate; for others, "egg-addling" might be the way to go (this is where the killing babies part comes in). I quote:

"Egg-addling includes various techniques of treating goose nests or eggs so they will not hatch, including coating the eggs with corn oil or puncturing the eggs with a small skewer. These techniques prevent further development of the embryo without causing the adult birds to immediately abandon the nest. The geese will eventually abandon the nest when it is too late to re-nest (usually by mid-May), so there should be fewer goslings produced and the adult birds may leave the area for the remainder of spring and summer."

Lovely, right? I mean where are the pro-life people? the PETA people? I have to admit that I am one of those who cannot fathom the passion (and compassion) humans have toward animals ... all of the homeless pet things from natural disasters, saving wolves in Yellowstone, whales in Japanese waters ... it all leaves me a bit cold ... I sign a petition here and there but I truly do not understand people's connections with their pets -- or the animal kingdom at large.

But reading about how to kill goslings?!? It made me nauseous. Now, don't get all carried away! You need authorization to do this egg-addling murderous stuff ("Property owners, local officials, homeowner’s associations and others may addle eggs so long as they have authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and DEC.") Consider yourself warned.

not to be outdone, the FOXNews.com home page (yes, amazingly enough, my home page is set to the evil Murdoch empire courtesy of my Greta-loving husband; I decided not to fight it, partly out of my noble desire to know what "the other (dark) side" is saying and thinking ... same reason I read the New York Post, although I have really come to love that paper, especially its new Page Six magazine! FAB!) has this gem: If you spank your kids, they will have sexual problems later in life. Yup, 80 years of spanking research and a report presented today appears to be the first to link spanking and sexual problems such as masochistic sex ...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333551,00.html

I am endlessly amazed at how people spend their time. I'm sure it's all helps to make the world go 'round, but seriously? (yes, I was affected by Grey's Anatomy) I just shake my head in wonderment.

same old same old

I caught most of the CNN debate tonight between Hillary and Obama ... what amazes me is that I had no idea it was scheduled to happen. I am plugged in all day to news -- radio, Internet, TV -- but am not loyal to any cable news outfit ... so was CNN the only place to learn there was a debate on CNN tonight?? it's almost as if they didn't want people tuning in. and there was not even much of a reason to, it's not like the candidates got to explore their differences or explain themselves to the public. it's all packaged and pre-tested and pointless. very discouraging

and the most important question that needed to be asked was of course ignored: why were both Hillary and Obama absent, failing to vote on the bill that just came out of the Senate including retroactive immunity for the telecom companies in relation to the FISA revisions ... McCain was there, voted the wrong way, but he was there. They should be asked to explain why they were not and how they could allow that to happen on such a vital issue (that gets zero attention so people don't know anything about it and if it isn't covered on TV then it must not really be important -- THAT is the false logic I am compelled to combat ... the media is not covering anything other than what makes money for the shareholders, it's a business, a corporation, not the check on government it was intended to be ... forget about the warnings on cigarettes and Chantix and everything else, TVs and any other electronic device that people use for news should come with a huge caution sign telling people that they cannot rely on them for information -- do NOT get your news here! (what if something actually happened when you had no service on your Blackberry??)

oh and I realized that I wrote about Chez getting fired from CNN but had not specified why ... for writing a blog : )

I'm baaaaack!!!!

hey, throw an 'r' in there and I'm Barack : )

anyway, my posts mysteriously fell off just before the dreaded Valentine's Day. I think I fell out of love with the idea of keeping this blog. I mean who really cares what I think anyway? I haven't even told many people I started this.
But then I read last night about Chez Pazienza who was just fired from CNN (with no severance, I might add, which makes my termination less monstrous to me)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chez-pazienza/say-what-you-will-requie_b_87282.html

and why not be inspired by his example? why not try to amplify my voice and vent a bit and if someone reads it and is inspired to act or even just thinks more because of it then all the better ... we are in need of another revolution, after all.

but I can't rally at the moment, I have two young children home from school on the Presidents Day break and lots of noise ~ environment not at all conducive to intelligent thought ... hard to focus on big picture topics like the Constitution and Kosovo declaring independence and what it means for Bush to be in Africa when all I can hear is incessant whining and fighting interspersed with a stuffed duck that chirps nonstop and the ever present nagging calls for "Mom!" (are they actually referring to me? and who are they anyway?) all against the lovely backdrop of Nickelodeon or Tom and Jerry cartoons. It makes the head throb.

rain rain go away

what a dreary day ... and I just came across such sad news. Congressman Tom Lantos passed away the other day; I heard nothing about it. I did not even know much about him and only vaguely recall reading that he was a Holocaust survivor. I wonder what his thoughts were as this administration has been violating laws, rights, the Constitution; as people seem so oblivious to what is happening ... I have heard many older people speak about how reminiscent these times are of the years leading up to the Holocaust, not in terms of anti-Semitism as much as in terms of the loss of liberties, the ostracization and marginalization of "them," the "others" (as in Muslims/the terrorists/Al Qaeda/the bad guys ~ no, I do not watch Lost), how the administration continues its assault met by virtual silence from the public who should be so outraged and speaking out so loudly ... I wonder if Chairman Lantos ever wrote or spoke on this subject. I'll have to look. I have been wanting to read Hannah Arendt and about Nuremburg and other works from that time period ... the parallels are chilling and it makes me quite unsettled as a Jewish mother, worried for the future ~ in all respects for my children but particularly as Jews.
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1121

and another thing ...

I'm back and wound up from my local school board meeting (again, another post) but now am even angrier than before with respect to the hearings tomorrow and the coverage focusing on Clemens ... I just read that the Senate passed that revision to the FISA bill and granted the telecom companies retroactive immunity?!? You have no idea what I'm talking about? Yeah, that's the problem. I just listened to breaking news about Andy Pettite giving up Clemens somehow and lots of talk about the stupid snow but I hear not one word, nothing about how our congresspeople caved yet again to the Bush administration and their unending quest for total secrecy and a bill came out of the Senate today granting Verizon and Comcast and whoever else a free ride for selling the public out to the government?? oh, but why would I expect the news to give me any news? they are all corporately owned now and have no interest in serving the function of a free press. It's all about the company's bottom line and making those shareholders some money and why would the mainstream media want to alert the public to any issue that actually affects their lives when they can keep everyone nice and placated with the latest about Britney's breakdown and a huge smoke and mirrors show about how seriously we must take the news of this widespread abuse of steroids in baseball. Yes, Congress has absolutely nothing else to spend its time on, nothing at all.
AND as if all this were not enough, I hear on my local news that a homeless veteran died on the streets last night in the bitter cold??? One of the homeless veterans that Bill O'Reilly recently denied exist???? And this administration blasts as unpatriotic and America-hating anyone who questions anything about the war or the laws being passed in its wake?!? But we have homeless veterans? Who die on the streets of suburbia after having survived the streets of Baghdad or some place? oh, that's right, there are no streets there, the no-bid contracts were given to private companies to rebuild the infrastructure but those millions of dollars have long since been blown on G-d knows what, all while there is still no water or electricity or schools in much of Iraq ... and let's not get started on the infrastructure right here at home! Collapsing bridges, exploding pipes beneath Manhattan ... it's enough to make you mad (in an insane way, although it certainly qualifies for anger as well)
amazing. now how can I just settle down and go to sleep? how do any of these people in power sleep at all?

Welcome!

Finally! My blogosphere debut!
I have wanted to start a blog for quite awhile now. I really thought being unemployed would motivate me (cause of job death: position elimination ~ gotta love the corporate mumbo jumbo). But that was a couple of months ago already.
So what was the ultimate push? Politics, of course.
But not of the usual sort. I am not getting too invested in the primary since I do not believe we are going to have an election in November (you heard it here first!) but that is a different post ...
I am enraged today (you'll learn that I tend toward the melodramatic) about hearings that will occur on Capitol Hill tomorrow. I thought I was going to testify at one, which was beyond exciting since I envisioned at 35 a five-year plan that would have me doing just that by 40.
As it turns out, I will not be in DC tomorrow, but Roger Clemens will. (His hearing is not the one I was hoping to attend.) And this is why I am enraged. I could care less about the steroid scandal ... really. I'm a lawyer (non-practicing but a lawyer nonetheless), I have a sports fanatic, young and impressionable son ... it should bother me that professional athletes take illegal drugs ~ but it doesn't.
What burns me up is that tomorrow's news will be all about Clemens and steroids and the propriety of elected officials posing for photographs and seeking autographs a week before evaluating Clemens' testimony. Especially here in New York, that hearing will be a top story, if not the lead.
What we may not hear much about, if at all, is a hearing about extending the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). For all the people that have some idea about the Mitchell Report and the steroid scandal, there are probably at least 10 others who have no idea about FMLA ~ what it is, that there is a hearing about it and why it should be extended.
That is what enrages me. And I will write more about it later.